I have written several tips in the past about how useful virtual machines (VMs) are. My tool of choice is Microsoft’s offering, Virtual PC 2007. One big thing is lacks, however, is the ability to resize a virtual hard drive (VHD file). Since I deploy a lot of demo and training environments via VMs, this functionality is critical. Thanks to the free tool, VHD Resizer, this is possible.

VhdResize will resize Microsoft’s VHD files and will also convert between Fixed and Dynamic file types. This is a sector by sector copy operation from one size/type to the other and the source file remains unaltered.

Simple and easy. All you do is just select the VHD file to resize and then specify a new size and file name and off it goes. The result is a new VHD file which has grown by the amount you specified. The next time you boot the VM, it will have the additional space available in Disk Management for you to assign as needed.

This is definitely a must for heavy users of Microsoft Virtual PC.